


a gleam of talons in the sunlight

by raviiel



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Assassination, Gen, POV Second Person, curiosity killed the cat as they say, or at the very least vaguely traumatized it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-15
Updated: 2019-11-15
Packaged: 2021-01-31 00:00:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21436828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raviiel/pseuds/raviiel
Summary: You cannot see his face. The hood seems specifically designed to cloak it from most angles, and you find yourself leaning from across the market to get even a glimpse.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	a gleam of talons in the sunlight

You aren't sure when you first notice him, if it was when the buildings opened up into the market or when you were waiting in line to do your daily haggle with the butcher.

At first, you aren't entirely sure what you're seeing—a scholar on his usual tour through the city, perhaps, for the crowd parted so effortlessly around him that it could only be for sight of a holy practitioner. The robes were the right color; a soft, unoffensive white that flowed in the dry breeze slithering between the walls, but the posture was not. Scholars, you know simply by way of them being intrinsic to city life, bear humility on their shoulders and neck, deferring to the sky above. This man had little regard for the sky—if he knew it were there at all.

The sheathed blade belies the idea of a scholar, holstered around his hips quite visibly. A guard, you wonder? Yet you've never seen such a uniform. All the guards around here wear darker colors and turbans, not hoods. A personal guard, perhaps? You've seen a bodyguard once, maybe twice as they with their imposing stature ward off anyone daring to wander near their charge. Such things are commonplace only in the wealthy district, which this is not. No, a bodyguard he is not.

Your mind has begun to entertain fantastical ideas in the sluggish line—phantoms, malā'ikah, anything of the sort. He maneuvers the crowd effortlessly, weaving through people as they part around him like water around rock. No one takes notice, stops to observe, checks again. He is not there. How can someone like that possibly be human? His posture is steady and his step is light, and though you've already discerned him from scholars, it may not be wrong to say he's on a pilgrimage all his own.

You cannot see his face. The hood seems specifically designed to cloak it from most angles, and you find yourself leaning from across the market to get even a glimpse.

"Don't hold up the line," grumbles a voice from behind you, and you blink to see you're two people away from finally reaching the front. You quickly stumble over an apology, move forward, and swivel your head back around. Your eyes dance, impatient to find the specter again, but he seems to have vanished.

Taken aback, you search for the white cloth among the warm-tone fabrics of the people, against the sun-warmed stone of the buildings framing the marketplace, but you spot only scholar after scholar, heads wrapped instead of hooded. The market is large, stalls and throngs of people obscuring view, but you grew up in this maze; you know its ins and outs like the back of your hand, you can bob through the masses well enough.

So you do. The voice that had grumbled behind you makes some caustic comment, but curiosity has ensnared you by the collar of your robes and has you dodging and ducking around people and merchants like your life depends on it. You scour, but the only white you continue to find is scholars—the robes really are too similar.

Your search drags on long enough that you begin to genuinely wonder if you'd been seeing things, if perhaps sleep has been missing your company a little too much this last week. By the time you realize how fruitless this is, you're on the far side of the market and lost of your spot in line that you'd been waiting in for what felt like hours.

Exasperated, collapse onto a nearby bench and wonder how much you'll be scolded for trading an essential part of dinner for childish figments and daydreaming. You mourn the time you'll have to spend waiting in line again. Then, it catches your eye.

Soft fluorescence that, you now notice, is brighter thanks to the red sash tucked under a broad band of leather armor. He still moves through the crowd with measured steps, focused on something you've yet to discover. It strikes you then that you've seen this sort of movement before—in a feline stalking a rodent. It's a humorous comparison but does not miss the mark at all; the poise, the steadfastness, the focus. He's… stalking someone.

Apprehension seizes you, and you're very glad you're sitting down because your legs may have given out on you otherwise. The white robes, the weapons, the unrelenting grace. The man cannot possibly be human. If he is, his intentions are anything but innocent.

_Ya Rab, have mercy!_ You think in a vague panic, frozen to your spot as your mind refuses to communicate rational movement to the rest of your body. Not another soul around you seems to share your plight, everyone going about their daily lives in ignorance.

Vision blurred around the edges, you attempt to track his line of sight; for where there is a predator, there is most certainly an unwitting prey, and you wonder who it could be. His hidden eyes make it difficult to tell where he is staring.

He stops. The hairs of your nape stand on end. The prey has been found and cornered. It's not you—_Alhamdulillah,_ how would you even handle such scrutiny—but your hands are clammy and you feel sickly cold in the sunlight.

_Who incurred the wrath of Malak al-Maut,_ you wonder, nauseated at the thought of what you were seeing truly being an agent of Allah. It had to be—no Mu'min would dare commit one of the most vile sins of humankind, especially not in such a public place.

Even as you balk, you cannot find the target he's so sharply honed in on. Slews of people coalesce in this particular market, bodies sliding past each other in a bid for who can finish their errands first; single entities simply don't exist at the peak of day, but this being, be he holy or an, you think queasily, an offspring of Iblīs, has singled someone out. With his blade, he has decided that blood must be spilled on this day, red as the sash swathed around his waist. You cannot look away.

He begins to move again, and your heart leaps into your throat, throbbing painfully but not circulating your blood enough to heat your chilled core. Your breath becomes bated, thin, as you wait for a body—multiple, even—to fall, but he continues to walk and no one falls at his feet. You watch vigilantly, but he does not stop for anyone. Someone passes between your eyes and him, but that's all that happens before he turns a corner and leaves the market proper.

He is gone.

Blood rushes you all at once, dizzying you. You slump on the bench, to the apprehension of the older woman next to you who voices concerns you're suddenly too exhausted to answer. Has your imagination always been this overactive? You aren't sure, but of course the man was simply that—just a man, oddly dressed, worryingly armed. Simply a man going about his life the same as anyone else here.

Weary, your mind pieces back together enough to begin mourning your lost spot in line, already working around plans for dinner. You've been so foolish today, letting bizarrely dressed men sweep you off guard.

Someone screams.

You jolt, dread and terror alight in every one of your nerves. Across the plaza where you'd just been staring, people are fleeing, panicked mayhem breaking out as they scatter like startled birds, begging Allah for mercy. You don't even need to get up and look to know what's happened. You don't think you _could_ get up—your legs are suddenly numb.

Guards flock, pushing their way through the terrified crowd, demanding the perpetrator reveal themselves, but you know better.

Jaw grit, you clench close your eyes and struggle against the urge to retch. You, solely you, knew what had been going to happen, yet you'd done nothing. You may never have been able to do anything at all. It may have been inevitable, this happening.

_Astaghfiru lillah,_ you think, _I have to get away from here._

The side of the market you're on is mostly cleared, save for the guards who have begun damage control, but a perimeter of curious, oblivious onlookers has begun to congregate. You stumble from the bench, legs weak and bones of jam, a firm hand slapped over your mouth and the other clutching your stomach. No one seems to notice your ailment as you stagger away from the scene, robes much heavier and thicker than you remember.

Voices grow distant, hushed curses and prayers fading away the further you go. You feel a world apart from your body, distant, not yourself.

It happened so fast, and you hadn't even bared witness. How could it have happened so fast? _When_ did it have time to happen? You hardly looked away once, yet the man had never drawn a sword. People would have panicked, you would have heard as much, but there was not a single reaction until after a body hit the floor. You hadn't seen that either, but you hadn't needed to.

The man had simply vanished.

_Not a man,_ you remind yourself. It could not be, not in a hundred years.

The red of his sash blares through your mind, and you seize up with the need to vomit again, pressed against the nearby wall. It's what you imagine blood looks like, what it looks like spilled over the ground. A life, simply gone. How can it be that easy, that swift?

An eagle's cry jerks your attention to the sky, and your hand immediately shields your eyes from the bright sunlight. The bird passes over the sun, and you blink, only to gasp and stumble back into the wall.

At the edge of the building above stands a silhouette, the glow of the sun a fiery halo around its body as its robes undulate in the wind. Your heart stops dead in your chest and your breath catches in your lungs.

The eagle sweeps low, startling your body back to life, and the silhouette disappears. You collapse against the building, breathless and near tears.

  
  


Later, you hear news of the man who died. He had been extorting merchants and harassing their families, threatening murder and kidnappings and other heinous acts better left unspoken. He had been a threat to even people you knew fondly for months now, his benefactor a worse man than he emboldening him.

You still return to the market daily, and you must not have noticed before how many shopkeepers seemed full of nerves to earn their coin. Now, they breathe easily, speak more friendly, aren't in such a rush.

You finally reach the butcher's stall, and far earlier than usual.

The other day seems so far, simply a nightmare to be folded away and forgotten. You stop searching for strangely dressed men in the crowds. Even a hair out of place, and you look away. You never want to bear witness to such things again. Once is enough.

"Ah, assalamualaikum!" greets the butcher, smiling jovially. He's most certainly in a better mood than usual.

"Yes, peace be upon you as well," you respond kindly, if a little tired. You're about to order your usual take when he puts a hand up.

"I have something good for you today, a gift!" He turns away and goes towards a stack of packages, ones you know that are ordered days ahead and delivered later. You don't recall ordering anything recently, nor do you have family or friends who might have done such, as no special occasion is upcoming. "Here we are!"

He drops a package onto the counter, and you balk at the its sheer existence. It isn't particularly large, but more so than anything you would ever be able to order.

"I… Pardon?" You fret. "I cannot pay for this."

The butcher waves his hand, smile goodnatured. "Worry not! It's already been purchased. Do you not remember sending your friend to place this order? Such prime cuts should not be forgotten!"

Knots form in your stomach because _no,_ you most certainly do not.

"Ah… Right, yes," you respond weakly, pulling the package towards yourself. "Baraka Allahu fika, and peace be with you again."

"No need to thank me, thank your friend!" calls the butcher after you. People glance at your package as you wobble away from the stall.

The package isn't heavy, yet you feel like you're heaving a boulder as you begin the trek back home. It will go for a few meals to be sure, feeding you and your family. Someone may ask where you got the coin from—what will you even say?

You pause to glance around. You have been trying not to look, and you do not feel in any immediate danger, but you imagine that man who died hadn't either.

No suspicious figures loom nearby from what you can see, and you take a deep breath. You should not be so ungrateful for such a gift, no matter its source. You trust that butcher, so the meat must be halal in any case. Yes, no need to worry. The meals will be delicious.

Steadying yourself, you begin to walk back home.

An eagle cries above. You do not stop. You do not look up. Some things are best left alone.

**Author's Note:**

> what's up this is hopefully the first of many AC fics from me but i [clenches fist] need to keep my motivation going strong. i'm particularly hellbent on writing fics about Ezio and his apprentices and also maybe some Yusuf/Ezio bc apparently i now love that
> 
> anyway here's a glossary. i'm not Muslim (or religious at all) and i do not speak Arabic so if i got something wrong, please. i beg of you. correct me. i did my best @ research and even asked around a bit
> 
> **Allah** — the Arabic word for God  
**malā'ikah** — angels  
**Ya Rab** — equivalent to 'oh my God!'  
**Alhamdulillah** — praise to Allah, equivalent to 'thank God'  
**Malak al-Maut** — or Azrail, the archangel of death  
**Mu'min** — believer, a faithful Muslim who is submitted entirely to the Will of Allah, someone who is firmly faithful  
**Iblīs** — he in the Quran who refused to prostrate himself to Adam and was cast from heaven. heavily debated whether he was an angel or a jinn, but commonly identified with Al Shaitan (the devil).   
**Astaghfiru lillah** — i seek forgiveness from Allah, forgive me Allah  
**assalamualaikum** — a common greeting, 'peace be upon you'  
**Baraka Allahu fika** — may Allah bestow his blessings upon you, equivocally 'thank you very much'  
**halal** — commonly used in reference to Islamic dietary laws, usually on how meat is processed. 'permissible', 'lawful', 'permitted' in relation to all aspects of Islamic practices.
> 
> again, i am nowhere close to the golden standard when it comes to Islam and the Arabic language, so please forgive me if i've fucked up. i hope you enjoyed reading! and i hope i can write more :3c


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